Wicken Fen Nature Reserve ~ Common Lizards, Dragonflies, Butterflies and More

We were just finishing our lunch in the grassy Wicken Fen car park and picnic area (National Trust) on Saturday when David noticed that this grasshopper was also eating its midday meal. 

It was an indifferent day weatherwise, with rare bursts of sunshine in between grey cloud. I was surprised to see so many tiny Common Lizards - some smaller than my little finger - on the edge of the boardwalk. There must have been about thirty, but we weren't actually counting. I expect some had just been born. The photos that appear below were taken with a zoom lens. Common Lizards are protected here in the UK under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. It is illegal to kill, injure or sell them. 

 I only noticed these head markings (below) for the first time when I uploaded my photographs.

It looks as though the lizard below had lost the end part of its tail ...

This next lizard (below) had a long tail, but there was a particularly scaly patch or fracture plane towards the end where perhaps the tail had re-grown. I don't know whether this applies to all species of lizard, but when a lizard sheds part of its tail in a bid to escape a predator, the lost section moves about for a while, distracting the hunter, thereby giving the lizard time to escape. The ability to a shed (and re-grow) the tail is called 'autonomy'. Re-grown sections of tail have cartilage rather than bone and cannot be shed in the same way. The mere threat of predation can cause sufficient alarm in the creature to trigger tail loss. 

The lizard in the photo below clung to the edge of the boardwalk ... Once again, the photo was taken with my zoom lens.

Ticks on lizards are rarely seen with the naked eye, but they often show up in photographs. Unlike the lizards I have occasionally spotted on Dunwich Heath, where there are animals grazing nearby and swathes of heather and bracken, the Wicken Fen lizards in my photographs do not appear to have ticks.

Much to my delight in this year when I have seen few ladybirds, we noticed two native 7-spots ...

I have added these to the UK Ladybird Survey.

Unfortunately we also noticed this Harlequin ... The thumb is to give a rough sense of scale.

We thoroughly enjoyed the chance to learn about some of the butterflies on the reserve, thanks to the knowledge and enthusiasm of Alison, a NT volunteer who leads butterfly walks.

We failed to see any Skippers this time, but we noticed a few Small Tortoiseshells ...

 ... and quite a number of Common Blues. These are exquisite little creatures.

...

I was keen to photograph a male and female Common Blue together, but had difficulty knowing where to focus the camera ...

 We spotted a couple of Brown Argus ...

 ... and Speckled Woods.

We are now moving on to the insects that I find hard to identify with accuracy! Please leave a comment if you spot a mistake or can help with identification. There were good numbers of Hoverfly ...

I think the one above may be the Striped hoverfly (Syrphidae).

To be identified ... slightly different from the one above, perhaps a Sunfly?

The breezy conditions probably accounted for the fact that there were few dragonfly on the wing. However, we found a few in the more sheltered spots. Here is a (?young) Common Darter ...

... and another.

I think this may be a male Ruddy Darter ... There seems to be a red tinge to the pterostigma.

There were several spiders - my photos are as yet unidentified. Do let me know if you recognise these arachnids!

The creature below seems to be a Short-winged Conehead (Conocephalus dorsalis), which is a species of Bush Cricket.

The photo below shows the length of the antennae! 

I am guessing that this is Roesel's Bush Cricket from the yellow markings ...

There were plenty of House Sparrows around the visitors' centre, but we saw surprisingly few birds on this occasion. We even failed to see a Marsh Harrier. However, the abundant insect life made up for any shortcomings on the avian front.

You may feel miles from nowhere (and indeed the nearest hostelry is called the Five Miles From Anywhere No Hurry Inn), but you know for sure that you are on a nature reserve when you come across a reed with its own number! 

There was one last surprise in store when we got back to the car ... I particularly love the pattern made by the creature's shadow! 

Is this a Speckled Bush Cricket? I'm not sure ...

Mystery Insect at Dunwich Heath (Ammophila sabulosa)

Some weeks ago, around 18 July, we were out and about on Dunwich Heath in the early evening. The heather was in full flower and it had been a lovely day.

We were keeping an eye out for deer and for Stonechats, and while we failed to see either on this occasion, my eyes fell upon this strange insect, which I guessed was a kind of ant. There were three of them in the area, if I remember correctly, but they were pretty speedy creatures and hard to catch on camera as the kept vanishing beyond the wire netting.

I was browsing the web earlier today when I spotted a photo of the insect here on the RSPB Lakenheath Fen page. The creature turns out (it seems to me) to be Red-banded Sand Wasp (Ammophila sabulosa). It has even appeared on a Romanian postage stamp. You can read about the wasp's kleptoparasitic behaviour in the Comments here on the iSpot nature website. 

These wasps are quite striking. They are long, thin and ant-like. However, in my opinion, they are not as striking as their near neighbour, the Ruby-tailed wasp, which I have seen on the adjoining stretch of coast at Minsmere and in my Suffolk garden.

Ruby-tailed Wasp in my garden, 2014

Lizards and Roman Snails at Chedworth Roman Villa

Some of you may have seen my previous post about the Purple Emperor butterfly at Chedworth Roman Villa. Well, the site proved to be a good habitat for lizards, who loved scaling the Roman walls and hiding in the undergrowth.   

Here is a close-up (above), taken from a respectable distance with a zoom lens. 

The photo above shows what a lot of nooks and crevices there are in the villa ...

... and these provide the ideal habitat not only for lizards but also for rare Roman snails. These snails (Helix Pomatia) have been at Chedworth since they were introduced by the Romans. They are protected by law. 

We visited the tea room before leaving, and noticed this little chap on one of the chairs! There were newts in the nymphaeum and we came away feeling that while we had greatly enjoyed re-discovering the Roman remains, we had also had a rich and unexpected wildlife experience. 

Small Moth

I am not at all good at identifying moths, but I believe this small specimen is Pyrausta purpuralis. I saw it on 1 August in the garden of Avebury Manor.

Tree Following ~ Silver Birch in August

This post is the sixth in my Tree Following series, part of a wider project run by Lucy Corrander from the Loose and Leafy blog. I am following a Silver Birch in Suffolk, UK. You will find the other Tree Follower links for August 2014 here ... so do take the chance to go on a virtual exploration of the arboreal world!

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Diary Entry 1: ANTS!
15 July 2014, 14.00hrs
Weather mild and cloudy, 17 degrees centigrade
[Flying ant survey here - do add your sightings]

We had thousands of ants taking wing on Saturday afternoon, 12 July. They came out of the hole in the brickwork used by the mortar bees and out of the soil and out of the air itself. We did some gardening over the weekend in an attempt to reclaim our fence from its stranglehold of Mile-A-Minute Vine aka Silver Flea Vine (Polygonum aubertii or Fallopia baldschuanica).

There has been a sudden influx of birds to the area around the Silver Birch, perhaps due in part to the combination of our pruning efforts and the hatching out of the ants. The mowing of the lawn and the subsequent torrential rain disturbed yet more insects, thereby enticing the birds back in good numbers for the easy pickings.  

I was delighted, if a little surprised, to find myself nose-to-beak with the fluffy face of a juvenile Long-tailed tit. The youngster was perching just above the coconut feeders on the Silver Birch. I had been taking a photograph of one of the ants on the bark, and was just thinking that a new coconut was needed. Before anything could be done about the limited coconut supply, a small company of about seven Long-tailed tits flitted across the garden. Three stopped to have a nibble before they moved on to the cover of a large shrub on the far side of the garden. I am really thrilled that they have reappeared as I have not seen a Long-tailed tit in my home patch since March. I just hope they will return at a time when the feeders have more on offer!

No sooner had the Long-tailed tits gone than a family of four Blue tits crowded around the feeder. They were soon displaced by a couple of Great tits, keen to re-assert their claim to the territory. The Dunnocks were flitting about but as I retreated to an upstairs window, the garden became still and lifeless once more. Suddenly the threatening silhouette of a bird of prey, a Sparrowhawk or Kestrel, flew from the tall trees that herald the start of the local nature reserve, and circled over the garden before disappearing in the direction of the stream.

Long-tailed tit sizing up the Silver Birch

Diary Entry 2: BLACK AND WHITE
28 July 2014, noon
Weather breezy, cloudy. 18 degrees centigrade

I looked out of the french window and saw a quick flash of black and white. I wondered if it was the Great Spotted Woodpecker making an appearance after her long absence from the feeder on the Silver Birch. When I returned to the spot with my coffee a few seconds later, the only birds in the garden were a pair of Magpies, fighting the toss over some morsel of food. I assumed the previous bird had been one of them and was just feeling a little deflated when - lo and behold - there was the black and white Woodpecker, resplendent with her crimson feathers. I feel slightly guilty writing this as all birds have their part to play in the grand scheme of things and Magpies often get a bad press, but this is the first time I have ever lived in a house with a visiting Woodpecker!


Diary Entry 3: BLACK, WHITE, RED ... AND BEDRAGGLED
6 August 2014, 11.40
Weather warm and wet. 22 degrees centigrade

Something white caught my eye as it flickered and twitched behind a post around the decking area. I waited and watched. Suddenly the bird, for bird it was, flew off its perch and descended on the coconut feeder that dangles from the Silver Birch. It was a bedraggled Great Spotted Woodpecker. It is possible that the 'drowned rat' appearance made the bird look smaller than it really was, but I am excited to think that this Woodpecker was probably from a 2014 brood. A Blue tit was hanging about in the wings and eventually plucked up courage to join the larger bird. The coconut made me realise that the Woodpecker was small, but it looked enormous beside the Blue tit!

The Blue tit (left) hangs back

Each to its own

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This months sightings in, on, under, over and around the Silver Birch include ...

• TFb1 Great Spotted Woodpecker (see diary entries above)
• TFb2  Great tit (several frequently on feeder)
• TFb3  Long-tailed Tit (a family on the Silver Birch, using the coconut feeders, 15 July 2014) 
• TFb4  Blackbird (one male frequently below feeder, another on the feeder - and a female)
• TFb6  Blue tit (several frequently on feeder, including young ones)
• TFb7  Robin (one or two appearances, including today)
• TFb8  Magpie (about three frequently dive-bombing feeder)
• TFb9  Wood Pigeon (up to ten perching around the feeder area)
• TFb10 Dunnock (two frequently below feeder)  
• TFb11 Starling (infrequent appearances of up to three birds) 

Previous birds not seen this month (and admittedly I was not at base all the time) ...

• TFb5 Song Thrush 
• TFb12 Carrion Crow (on fence at back of Silver Birch) - first seen on 14 May 2014
• TFb13 Goldfinch

 On the insect front, this month's sightings on or near the Silver Birch included ...

• TFi17 Migrant Hawker dragonflies ... quite a number, perhaps from the Local Nature Reserve nearby. First one of 2014 seen on 20 July.
• TFi18 Unidentified Damselfly
• TFi19 Comma butterfly 
• TFi20 Red Admiral butterfly
• TFi21 Peacock butterfly
• TFi22 Green bottle flies, due, perhaps to the warm weather
• TFi22 Squashbug aka Dock Bug, Coreus marginatus

Here (below) is a photo of one of the many Migrant Hawkers. Most flitted between the Silver Birch at one end of the garden and the tall shrub in the photo at the other. The dragonfly in the picture was the only one that landed (on the tall shrub), and was therefore a sitting target for the camera. It may have a slightly damaged wing.

.

There were also plenty of moths. My moth ID skills are sadly lacking.

Previous sightings around the Silver Birch include ...

• TFi1 Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly [March]
• TFi2 Buff-tailed Bumblebee [March] 
• TFi3 Brimstone Butterfly [April]
• TFi4 7-spot Ladybirds [April]
• TFi9 Small White Butterfly [May]
• TFi10 Orange tip Butterfly [May]
• TFi11 Harlequin ladybird [May]
• TFi12 Garden Chafer (Phyllopertha horticola) [June] 
• TFi13 Ruby-tail Wasp [June]   
• TFi5 Skipper Butterfly [July]
• TFi6 Meadow Brown Butterfly [July]
• TFi7 Large White Butterfly [July]
• TFi8 14-spot Yellow Ladybirds [July]
• TFi14 Blackfly [July]
• TFi15 Marmalade Hoverfly [July]
• TFi16 Shield bug [July]

Of course it is often hard to tell whether the examples of flora and fauna that I spot in the vicinity of the Silver Birch - or on the feeders that hang from its branches - are there specifically on account of the tree.

The Silver Birch has not changed in appearance very much from last month. However, the tiny seeds seem to be everywhere. There was a sprinkling on my windowsill this morning, and one seed landed on me while I was enjoying a mug of tea in the garden. The Silver Birch produces an incredible 15-17 million seeds in a year, so it is hardly surprising that these seem to be everywhere! They look like mite-sized bats on account of the 'wings' that enable the wind to disperse them. You can find a photo here.

If you are part of the Tree Following brigade, I look forward to reading your August updates. I wonder whether you also noticed less change in the actual appearance of your tree than in previous months. I suspect the story in September will be rather different, particularly since there are already signs of an early autumn, with ripe blackberries, plenty of apples and swelling conkers. 

MY PREVIOUS TREE FOLLOWING POSTS

• June to July 2014 
• May to June 2014
• April to May 2014
• March to April 2014
• February to March 2014

Purple Emperor Butterfly at Chedworth Roman Villa

Chedworth ... not just birds, but butterflies, too

We visited Chedworth Roman Villa in Gloucestershire on Wednesday 30 July. It is a beautiful site, with views of the Cotswold countryside and superb Roman remains.

Archaeological sites often offer surprisingly rich habitats for wildlife, and Chedworth proved no exception, as you will see on my lizard and Roman snail post here. 

A National Trust worker pointed us in the direction of a large butterfly, initially on the wall and then on the ground, just outside the Visitors' Centre.

It was a very warm day, and the butterfly appeared to be rather lethargic. As people passed it, on their way in or out of the site, a number of possible identifications were offered. Purple Emperor seemed the most likely although some were convinced that it was a White Admiral.

 I believe the butterfly was a Purple Emperor on account of ...

• its large size (female 75 mm wingspan)
• the amber circles on the hind wings
• its distinctive underside markings
• the location (Cotswolds) and habitat (edge of deciduous wooded area)

I wondered why the Purple Emperor was not looking 'purple' and assumed the butterfly before us was perhaps a female, which is probably the case. I had, however, overlooked the nature of iridescence which I know a little about from watching dragonflies and kingfishers. The male Purple Emperor has black wings with white markings - and the black pigment only takes on the distinctive and lustrous purple sheen when sunlight is refracted from the butterfly's wing scales.

I have recorded the sighting on the Big Butterfly Count form. From my reading, I reckon we were very privileged to have this unexpected sighting. It seems rather fitting that we were introduced to an emperor at a Roman villa! Just occasionally we find ourselves in the right place at the right time ...

• The Purple Empire blog

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***Postscript***
In case you missed the Comments...

Matthew Oates said...

That's the first sighting of a Purple Emperor in Gloucestershire since 1990! And I've looked hard. Chedworth Woods certainly look suitable. Well done and Thank You for turning Gloucestershire Purple, and on NT land to boot!

Matthew Oates NT specialist on butterflies and devotee of the Purple Emperor

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Post for ...

 NF Winged meme